Longtime friend Lamoriello says Valentine was born to manage

By BRIAN MacPHERSON | | Journal Sports Writer

Friday

Dec 2, 2011 at 12:01 AM

Whenever Lou Lamoriello has heard about managerial vacancies in Major League Baseball, he’s let himself wonder whether his old friend Bobby Valentine might be interested. He was not surprised at all when Valentine emerged as a candidate for — and eve

Whenever Lou Lamoriello has heard about managerial vacancies inMajor League Baseball, he's let himself wonder whether his oldfriend Bobby Valentine might be interested. He was not surprised atall when Valentine emerged as a candidate for - and eventuallylanded - the Red Sox job.

"Bobby loves baseball, loves to be in the action, loves to bethere," Lamoriello said in a phone interview Friday. "He was bornto manage, basically. With any job that might have come about, I'veoften thought about what Bobby's thoughts were and where he was at-but timing is everything, and this is a great opportunity."

Lamoriello was a 25-year-old manager in the Cape Cod BaseballLeague in 1967 - as well as the assistant baseball and hockey coachat Providence - when he heard about Valentine from an assistant onthe Friars' basketball staff. Lamoriello went to see Valentine playand recruited him to play for his Yarmouth Indians for the summerbetween his junior and senior years in high school.

"There was no question in my mind he was a talent," saidLamoriello, later the Providence College athletic director and thefirst commissioner of Hockey East before assuming the reins as thepresident of the NHL's New Jersey Devils. "He was very young atthat time - and I was young, myself - and I sort of watched out forhim. He was the youngest player in the Cape League, so I stayedclose to him for a lot of different reasons.

"His personality - he's a vivacious type of individual, and hehasn't changed. He's a pleasure to be around, enthusiastic, and heloves the game of baseball. He's a student of it. He was a studentthen - he stole bases, he studied pitchers at a young age. He wasborn to manage."

Valentine held his own as a 17-year-old on Cape Cod in largepart because of his maturity, Lamoriello said.

"You can have a 17-year-old going on 12 or a 17-year-old goingon 22, and he was more the latter," Lamoriello said. "He fit rightin."

Lamoriello stayed in touch with Valentine from that pointforward - especially while Valentine was managing the New YorkMets, just up the road from where Lamoriello was working with theDevils - and where Jeff Van Gundy, formerly a Providence Collegeassistant basketball coach and another longtime Lamoriello friend,was coaching the New York Knicks.

"You have those relationships that have sort of been createdbecause of mutual respect and paths that cross, and, with certainpeople, those are lasting," Lamoriello said. "Rick Pitino and I areas close today as we were during our days at Providence."

Valentine enjoyed his greatest successes in New York, pilotingthe Mets to the World Series in 2000. But he clashed with generalmanager Steve Phillips and was fired under a cloud of controversyafter the 2002 season.

His outspokenness and his tendency to draw media attention - aswell as his lengthy track record of successes and failures - madehis candidacy easily the most divisive among Red Sox fans, withmany adamantly in favor and many others adamantly against.

Valentine himself was asked during his introductory pressconference on Thursday night whether he believed he was aspolarizing as he's made out to be. Lamoriello chuckled when thesame word was mentioned to him on Friday.

"I get a kick out of that," he said. "You can take anything outof context. No matter what happens, there are going to be peoplethat like you and respect you and people that respect you but don'tlike you. Things are not going to be perfect.

"Maybe people didn't like that he demanded the most out of hisathletes when he was managing. Maybe they felt he could do it theirway. But he wants to win. He's committed to winning. He wantsexcellence. He wanted it out of himself. When you want somethinglike that, you're going to hold people accountable - and when youhold them accountable, you have to tell them sometimes things theydon't want to hear."

The traits that rub some the wrong way, Lamoriello said, arewhat make him who he is.

"He loves the game," he said. "He knows the game. He's a studentof the game. He wears his passion on his sleeve, and he has a wayof rubbing that off into people. That's where, at times, somebodymight not like that. But it's genuine, and it's real. He wantseverybody to love and feel the game the way he does. That doesn'tmake him wrong. That doesn't make the other person wrong if theydon't have that feeling."

Lamoriello, of course, has no doubt Valentine will succeed asthe Red Sox manager - even if his success comes at the expense ofthe team he prefers.

"No question, the Red Sox have made a great choice - and Bobbyhas made a great decision," he said "But he still knows I'm aYankee fan."

bmacpherson@providencejournal.com

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